Victims of the Wall

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Hans-Joachim Zock

1940–1970

Hans-Joachim Zock, a 30-year-old waiter and chemical worker from Halle-Neustadt who had endured years of Stasi suspicion, drowned in the Spree in mid-November 1970 while trying to swim to West Berlin.

Hans-Joachim Zock was born in Berlin on 26 January 1940 and last lived in Halle-Neustadt. Everything known about him comes from Stasi files, which reflect the secret police's view of him. As a teenager he trained as a page and waiter at the East German government guesthouse in East Berlin, but was dismissed for alleged lack of discipline after going to the cinema in West Berlin with other apprentices. In December 1956 he moved to West Germany, settling in Bad Salzuflen, and returned to East Berlin in June 1960. The Stasi files also record, without further background, two convictions: in 1961 for causing grievous bodily harm and in 1965 for embezzlement to the detriment of state property, each with a suspended sentence.

From 1965 he worked at the Buna chemical plant, first as a loader and later in the carbide factory, and he belonged to the workers' militia and the factory's youth organisation leadership. Yet whenever something went wrong at the plant, he came under suspicion: after machinery was damaged in 1965, after a break-in at the militia's gun room, and after youth organisation pamphlets were defaced with political remarks in 1970. He was repeatedly interrogated for hours or investigated in secret, yet nothing was found against him: the machinery damage was never solved, the gun-room burglar turned out to have no link to him, and in the pamphlet case he was kept under investigation even after the person responsible had been identified. Even the Stasi finally had to record that none of its questioning of him had ever established an offence.

On 20 May 1970 he was dismissed without notice, and although he found work as a waiter in Halle, he stopped turning up for work there in early August 1970 and was dismissed without notice. On 12 November he wrote to his aunt in West Germany explaining that he planned to escape. He described interrogations lasting 15 hours after a 12-hour shift, and believed the mistrust stemmed from his years in the West, to which he was not allowed to return.

On 13 November 1970 he left home in Halle-Neustadt, saying he was going to look for work, and took the train to Berlin. That evening he spent hours in a bar with a relative of his first wife, telling her he missed his child and wanted to pay a visit; she said he was not drunk when he left. Four days later his coat and suit were found on the bank of the Spree, on the premises of a building materials plant. The autopsy placed his death at some point between 14 and 17 November, most probably by drowning, as no other injuries were found. What finally led him to attempt the crossing can no longer be established.

On 17 December 1970 the East Berlin water police recovered his body near the heating plant in Mitte. Sealed watertight in his clothing were his identity papers, several photographs of a child, presumably his son, and the stamped letter to his aunt. He had been registered as missing since 24 November 1970.

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Also died on the sector border between Berlin-Friedrichshain and Berlin-Kreuzberg

Sources

This profile is a summary written for this site. Every fact in it is taken from source 1, which also gives the full account with archival references.

  1. Text: Nora Prüfer, translated by Miriamne Fields, “Hans-Joachim Zock”, biography in Chronik der Mauer, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Deutschlandradio. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online. Basis for every fact in this profile, including the dates and place of death.
  2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online.
  3. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke (eds.), The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: A Biographical Handbook. Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Berlin Wall Foundation, Berlin 2011. The printed handbook from which the online biography is taken.
  4. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, “140 Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989” (list), Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Berlin Wall Foundation, August 2017. PDF. Used to cross-check names and dates.
  5. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, “The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: Findings of a Research Project”, August 2017. PDF. Source of the classification into escapees, people with no intent to escape, and border soldiers.

Cite this page

“Hans-Joachim Zock”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/zock-hans-joachim/

Map

The pin position is based on the place of death described in source 1. Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors; course of the Wall in 1989 from Geoportal Berlin (dl-de/zero-2.0). Accessed 23 September 2026.